The yogic process of bringing the light back

ByShiva Shakti Yoga

“Shiva dreaming” by Cornelia Kopp is licensed under CC BY 2.0

Last post we left the story with alluding to the continuation of the story with “the churning of the ocean of milk”. 

This is an allegory for the yogic process of stirring the consciousness, to make it reveal its content and its true nature.

This process is in yoga done by the help of, for example, Asana, Pranayama and Mantra. 

All of these practices stirs up emotional and mental material, as well as work on the more subtle layers of the individual. 

This very complicated process is beautifully explained in this story.

In the story the devas (gods of light) and asuras (gods of darkness) are appointed to churn the ocean of milk (consciousness) to get the quality of abundance, light and goodness back to the world. 

In the process goodness surfaces in different forms, but so too does the darkness. The darkness surface as a sticky, black substance. To save the world Shiva takes this substance into his throat. 

This symbolizes the capacity of consciousness (Shiva) to hold and transform the darkness into light. 

The process ends with Lakshmi surfacing with a pot of nectar. This nectar (Amrita) is the essence of sri; abundance, light and goodness in all its forms. 

The story ends with the asuras (gods of darkness) being fooled from getting any of the Amrita (nectar). 

This symbolizes that the parts of the personality that is lack of consciousness and lack of truthfulness, can not take part of consciousness or truthfullness. 

This means that even if untruthful and unconscious parts of our selves are part of the motivation and the work of “churning the ocean of consciousness”, they can never receive its fruit, since the qualities of consciousness, like clarity and truth, eradicates their existence. 

Music: Jaya, Shantala

Similar Posts

  • To be worthy

    A legend from the 12th-14th century described in the text Matsyendra Samhita describes how the fisherman Mena is swallowed by a whale. The story tells how Mena is devoured by a choice and thereby hears secret teaching from Shiva when, at Shakti’s request, he teaches her the ultimate being of everything, at the bottom of…

  • Sri Yantra

    What happens when contraction and expansion take place at the same time? Perhaps it is these circumstances that can create something truly new. A contraction to a nothing/ a small still point of concentrated energy, and then an explosion into a new creation. The Tantric tradition speaks of prakasha and vimarsha. Prakasha is the unmanifest…

  • Living your dharma

    Psychoanalysis talks about sublimating traumas. This means allowing our lives to take the direction of working with our traumas. We often choose jobs and engagements that are linked to our traumas. If this is done unconsciously, it is called repetition compulsion, and leads to actions that forces us to repeat our original trauma time and…

  • Trust-Vasanta Navaratri

    25 / 3-3 / 4 is Vasanta (spring) Navaratri. The 9 nights when you celebrate the Goddess, also called Shakti and Kundalini.  The goddess is the energy aspect of consciousness. In its entirety, she is the energy behind everything that exists. She is then called Mahadevi or Maha Durga. In this form she is also…

  • Being with truth

    One student asked me after the last post, this appropriate question: So if you want to go through the process of Yoga, of facing truth more and more, how do you do it? Last time, we talked about Yoga as a truth-seeking tradition, and about unveiling layers of untruth and faulty knowledge. We also talked…

  • Yoga as a truth-seeking

    Tantra speaks of the actions of “the All”, which are also the individual’s 5 powers. These are: Srsti-creation Stihiti-stasis Samhara-dissolving Tirodhana-forgetting, veiling Anugraha-unveiling, remembrance These actions are the acts of consciousness. Consciousness can create a thought, hold on to a thought, let a thought dissolve, and can forget something by dropping the focus on it….